No more Hugh Laurie
by Stephanie Jack Engelbrecht
Summary: House has gone to Mayfield. In the meantime, his team continues on with a newly added member. Even though there is no actual House in this story, in a artistic sense, it's still House-centric.
1. Chapter 1 - The boy who doesn't age

**The boy who doesn't age**

Cuddy was on the phone. An old classmate of hers she had only lightly kept in touch with had out of the blue phoned her.  
'Please help me out, for old time's sake' he sounded exasperated. Cuddy sighed, 'What kind of favour are we even talking about? You want me to help you're niece find a residency? She should just apply like everyone else.'  
'She has; believe me, but no one is going to take her, again, believe me.' Cuddy wrinkled her forehead but before she could say something or even politely excuse herself from this phone call he continued. 'you see, she's kind of an oddball, weirdo even… but she's smart, every year she's the top of her class, top of her year even.' Cuddy could hear him take a deep breath on the other side of the line. She realized the crux was about to come.  
'You have dr. House don't you, I think she would be perfect for his department.' Cuddy's eyebrows left the atmosphere. 'Wha-'  
'I really think it's for the best to put all the crazy ones together don't you, I mean, there I no reason why Jack should have to suffer having to put up with normal people stuff, and for normal people to have to deal with her antics.' He quickly cut her off.  
'House is on personal leave' Cuddy put in dryly. Her initial surprise had subsided, and now worry took its place, _someone fit for House? I don't even…_ but Cuddy was now curious 'Why do you think no one else will hire your niece, if she's as good as you say she is?'  
'Oh you know, she ticks people of, unnerves them. It's really I knack I suppose. Oh and she tends to get into all kinds trou-' he cut himself of there. Cuddy could hear his silent embarrassment on the other side of the line.  
'You want me to hire a resident for a department head that isn't here, because you fear she isn't going to get in anywhere else because she gets into a lot of trouble?' Cuddy repeated his request.  
'um, yes please' It sounded like he himself thought it sounded cheesy. Cuddy sighed; she kind of missed having House rampage the hospital. She knew it was the pink-coloured glasses of Houses absence that made her miss it, not because she actually missed his antics.  
'All right, I'll see what I can do, but since she seems like a huge pain in my ass already I want a probation time to evaluate what I'm getting into.' She could actually hear her old friend's relief.

Taub and thirteen where sitting in the conference room; Houses office was empty and dark. Foreman was technically the boss now, but even he didn't have the nerve to occupy Houses office, and so for close to four weeks now, it had been devoid of any human activity. The three of them had just solved a case two days ago, only sadly too late, and the mood had turned a bit sour.  
Cuddy has told them the day before that a new resident would join them today. This had surprised all three of them because with House gone to a psychiatric hospital the future of the department of diagnostics was a bit unsure to say the least. And so Taub and thirteen were sitting waiting for either Foreman or the new resident to show up. Both were late.  
Foreman burst into the room with a lot of movement, he dumped three file-cases onto the table and went to the coat hanger.  
'Shouldn't you have four of these printed out?' asked Taub, he was referring to the still nowhere to be seen resident. Foreman looked a bit confused for a moment but then his face cleared, 'right' he spoke. 'oh well' Foreman actually wasn't looking forward to this new person, he'd have to deal with the inexperience of someone who'd just graduated from medical school when he clearly was having enough trouble just dealing with the job of diagnosing.  
'Who even comes in late for their first day of work?' he wondered out loud. Taub and thirteen remembered the vicious battle they had gone through to get the job, this new person had just been offered it fresh out of med school, just like that.' Cuddy's friend had been right, she wasn't even there yet, and she was already pissing people of.

The door opened and someone walked in. All three Houses underlings looked up expectantly. And all three were immediately confused.  
A seemingly young man, about 18-19 years old stood in front of them. Wearing a white short-sleeved dress-shirt tucked into a pair of black pants. His hear was short-ish and stood up in all directions, kind of like bed hair. He had light brown round shaped eyes, and as he stepped into a sun patch in the room, the light that hit his right eye lit it up to an almost amber-like colour. He grimaced and stepped out of it, his pupil shrunken to a needle prick. Taub had never known a person could be _that_ beautiful without there being anything sexual to them whatsoever. The boy had a sort of feral feeling to him as he looked around the room. Unbeknownst to Taub, Foreman and Thirteen were struck by the same thing.  
The second thing Foreman noticed was that this boy had the same taste for sneakers House had. His whole outfit was sober, cheap but durable, with no personalisation's whatsoever. He didn't wear any kind of jewellery, apart from a watch. But his sneakers were big and colourful Taub blinked as he too saw the sneakers, raising his eyebrows. Thirteen on the other hand smiled as she recognized the colour scheme of the ninja turtles in the boy's shoes.  
'Sorry I'm late' the boy put his bag on a chair, Foreman got up in protest  
'Who are you?' he asked, 'what are you doing here?' Adding 'we are working here' the boy seemed almost amused by Foreman's confusion. He just kept smiling until it dawned on one of them. Thirteen was the one who first realised. 'You're dr. Engelbrecht, our new resident' she stated. She had now also risen from her chair. The boys smile grew bigger.  
Foreman and Taub stared at each other, this had to be a joke, Taub wanted to open his mouth but the boy was faster.  
'I'm 26.' Taub shut his jaws together again. All three looked dr. Engelbrecht over again, Taub even blinked his eyes a few times to make sure, this kid seriously wasn't 18? He didn't have any sign of beardgr– oh. The coin dropped.  
'You're a woman.' Normally a stupid statement to make, here it was necessary.  
'Well, not on the inside anyway.' Engelbrecht responded. 'Call me Jack btw, It has three less syllables.' Jack sat down, while all of them were still processing the new information; also the casual way Jack had handled it was startling.  
The entire exchange from entering the room till sitting down had only taken one minute, but information wise it should have taken longer. Foreman scraped his throat, 'so anyway… the case…'

Thirteen and Taub had gone to give the patient an infuse and gone for some lab tests based on their ddx. Jack was flipping through the case file looking bored. Or maybe that was just how his face looked if he was focussed. Foreman didn't know for sure, Jack didn't seem to on the same physiological level the rest of them were. Jack looked up into the ceiling. He hadn't added anything to the ddx a moment ago. He had just looked kinda bored and flipping through the file the same way he was now, every now and then he looked at the white board with an odd glance. It worked on Foreman's nerves. This man or woman, or whatever he was, Foreman paused his own thoughts, he referred to him as a he, so that probably said all that was needed. He, Jack was so different from House, and yet already equally annoying to him.  
Jack suddenly got up, 'gotta check something' he simply said. And gone he was.

Jack was very sensitive others body language and very good at reading group dynamics and situations; maybe as a payment for that skill he was oblivious to how he himself impacted a group or how he came across to others. Not that he had time to consider such nonsense. His life was surprisingly like watching a television show where he was around all the time and saw everything that happened, but wasn't an integral part of it.  
The patient Foreman had brought on was a bit of a mystery case, it wasn't something Jack felt he could immediately contribute to. There wasn't enough information available and so Jack had decided to go to the room the patient was kept in. After walking down the wrong hallway a few times he managed to get there just in time to see the boy being wheeled out of the room by his colleagues. Jack made a calculation and decided they must have taken their sweet time to get ready, but it wasn't really of concern to him.  
The boy in the hospital-bed was pretty young, which contributed to his case being so weird. Normal six year old didn't have this many, and diverse ailments, plus no matter what anyone had done so far he didn't get better, only worse.  
Still inside the patients room was his mother who was resting her head in her hands. Her son suffered from epileptic attacks and was losing more and more of his consciousness. The chart had also mentioned sore joints, light sensitivity and red rashes. The rest of the team had thought of systematic lupus erythematosus. Foreman had wanted them to start a prednisone and mycophenolate mofetil via infuse to halt the infections.

Foreman was going to explain to the mother of the boy what they thought the diagnosis was and what they were going to about it. As he walked down the hallway to the room the boy was in he was surprised to see that the "thing" Jack had gone to check out turned out to be the patient room. No not the room, Jack was staring intently and, quite frankly, rudely at the distraught mother. As he got closer to Jack, the spell of his stare was broken as he now turned his completely expressionless face to Foreman. Without saying anything he got up and hands in pocket started to turn.  
'Wait a second' Foreman hadn't meant to snap, he usually only snapped at House when he was about to do something terrible to a patient. Jack half turned, and immediately Foreman felt exasperated, this dude was really working on his nerves. 'Oh, whatever', to Foreman Jack was someone he didn't want to put any energy into, just leave him be, and he would soon either drop out or be fired for doing absolutely nothing. Jack seemed to take his "whatever" to heart and Foreman could almost see his annoyance glide off of Jacks sleeves. He turned to the room and took a breath changing gears. He walked into the room as the mother stood up.

A two more days passed as they continued treating the boy for the lupus. But his healing process was not great, he would get a bit better, and then get worse again. The test results for the antinuclear antibodies and the antibodies against double-stranded DNA got back negative. And so all of them held a new ddx in the conference room, this time Jack was well on time arriving before any of the others.  
To all of their annoyance (which Jack seemed oblivious to) Jack had spent most of those two days lounging on the bench outside the room, at one point even snacking on a bag of chips. The mother had complained, and Cuddy had to send him away. This had only caused Jack to become more inconspicuous. He had been back on the bench completely unrecognizable. Taub had gone for a check-up when he noticed a young woman sitting gracefully outside looking in with a sympathetic look on her face. He couldn't help but stare as he passed and went into the room. As he turned to face the patient he felt his cheeks lit up with fire, that sympathetic young lady was definitely Jack, what the f* was he doing?!  
As Taub arrived at the conference room he could barely look at the now male again Jack sitting stoically at the head of the table.

Like the previous time Jack kept quiet during the ddx. He contrary to his looks and to what he told himself had a bit of social anxiety. Speaking up in a group was not his strong suit. He would find "valid" reasons as to not say whatever was on his mind. And he might not have looked it, but he did have a lot on his mind, but he knew that what he had on his mind was potentially risky. And so he kept his mouth shut and instead listened while doodling on a piece of paper. He would instinctively draw eyes and sometimes add faces and before long the paper was filled with eyes of different style and expression all staring up at him.  
It was weird but Jack felt confronted by the thirty something pairs of eyes accusingly looking at him, he looked up quickly. He realized too quickly as he was now being looked at by his three colleague fellows, they looked at him expectantly, and he found himself having to decide what to do more quickly that he had looked up.  
'We should put him in the pressure tank.' He decided on. He felt nervous saying something in a group, but no one would notice that, he made a point of not "uhuming" of stammering, instead his voice steadily and confidently spoke out his thoughts to the outside world.  
The three looked at him rather surprised. This frankly annoyed him; he pulled a face, and then turned his gaze to Foreman.  
'I'm pretty sure he'll get better if we do that.' He elaborated. Clearly though, judging by the looks he was given, his elaboration was not good enough.  
'Look, I have a hunch but it's not something I'm willing to share just yet.'

Foreman looked Jack in the eyes, he was sure, and annoyingly, he had the same "I'm sure" face House did. It was somewhat frustrating that the moment he was freed from all the whims House subjected them all to, he was presented by someone else with the exact same tendencies; so different, yet so the similar.  
Jack's gaze had not wavered a single moment during Foreman's train of thought. He sighed, and conceded.  
'I suppose it can't hurt him.' _and it wouldn't really bother him either_ Foreman added in private. The boy's consciousness was decreasing with the hour, they could continue looking and thinking while he was in the tank. With House they had done much weirder and worse things to their patients. This wouldn't even reach the top twenty.

And so the boy was put into the pressure tank. Mystifying everyone Jack didn't want them to change the pressure though, just have him lie in there for twenty-four hours. That was all. He got a pocketbook from his bag, and sat on a chair in the room waiting for who knew what.  
Just as Jack was about to start a new chapter someone touched his shoulder; it was the patient's mother. He looked at her questioningly.  
'Why does he have to be in there? Are you sure it's helping him?'  
'Sure it will'  
'Why?' she asked sounding hopefully, voice almost breaking  
Jack ignored her question, unwilling to answer her, or anyone for that matter, and not feeling like lying.  
He dealt with her increasing anger at him ignoring her up till the point Thirteen arrived and took her apart, essentially covering for him.

'So he's getting better?' Cuddy sat behind her desk. Foreman stood in front of it. The boy with the mysterious illness was indeed recovering. He had been kept in the pressure tank, no pressure, and was steadily improving; prognosis was if he continued like he was, he would completely recover from all his ailments. Jack had been right so far. And now Foreman stood in Cuddy's office because people were not supposed to get better just by laying in an unused pressure tank. Presumably Jack knew why this had happened to this particular patient, seeing he had been the one insisting on them doing it, but he was nowhere to be found.  
'When Jack turns up I'm sure he will explain.' Was all Foreman could manage. Arguably no one was more irritated at Jacks disappearance then him. After all, he had no clue as to why Jacks idea had worked. _Why the f* did that work of all things?!_ He stood stiffly looking at Cuddy hoping to be released. She did.  
Once outside the office he closed his eyes, if House had taught him anything it was that when hiding, one should hide where no one would expect it. He sighed and started walking.  
In the middle of the waiting room of the clinic Jack sat on one of the chairs looking interested at all the different people coming and going. Of course he was.  
'We're all looking for you, he's getting better.'  
'I know, I was there' Jack replied curtly. Foreman felt like strangling him.  
'I was thinking how I should explain' Jack then continued before Foreman could speak again.  
'You know, I was hoping my idea wouldn't work' this put Foreman on his guard, that sentence was never a good sign.  
'Why?'  
'Because this means the Phenytoin is leaving his system' Jacks statement landed like a bomb in Foreman's brain. He had basically just proclaimed that the boy had never been sick, only poisoned. Foreman's brain raced.  
'The mother?'  
'Yeah.' Jack got up, cracked his neck and suddenly pulled his face into a weird grimace. 'She's got Munchausen, only she's smart enough not to hurt herself.' It was a harsh statement resembling something House might have said. Jack's voice was cold, he started moving down the hallway ignoring the fact he was in the middle of a conversation. Foreman could see the horror of the case glide off of Jacks shoulders down his sleeved as he moved his mind onto something new.


	2. Chapter 2 - And then there were chickens

**And then there were chickens**

Jack had only turned around to grab some gauze, when behind him hell broke loose; the patient had suddenly scrambled of off the doctor bed chair thing knocking over the metal wheeled tray holding all the necessary medical equipment for the average clinic patient.  
Jack swiftly turned around on his toes to face the woman; he had just cut open a huge cyst on her chest. She looked wildly at him and made sort of frenzied movements, she seemed to be having some sort of episode. Jack couldn't help himself 'interesting'. As Jack considered what he should do, the patient suddenly crouched to the floor and nimbly picked up something. It was the scalpel he had used. This raised a slight concern inside Jack, but his panic reaction time was a naturally slow one, he once had a near car crash and the adrenaline hit him five whole minutes after it was already over.

It was important that Jack should manage to take the scalpel away from her quickly. She could hurt him, but also herself, but before he could think of what to do or anything to say she charged him slashing the scalpel in an up to down movement. Jack put up his arm to guard but at the last moment realised the scalpel would go straight through everything it encountered and he turned his arm so the face of his palm pointed to his face.  
It was weird, Jack felt the steel slice its way through his flesh, but the cut was so sharp the pain was delayed. When the scalpel left his arm it dug deeper end reached the part of his abdomen where it continued its path, although less deep. At the same time Jacks right had had moved to grab her wrist, her centre of gravity was too far too the front and it look only a small pull to get her to completely lose her balance. Jack grimaced, but didn't hesitate. He put all his strength in his thumb and pointer finger putting a high pressure on her wrist, her wrist was positioned in between his two finders, but his fingers were not aligned, causing one of her wrist bones to slightly shift under the pressure of his fingers. She screamed and dropped the scalpel. Jack took a deep breath. The door opened, he didn't look who had entered, and instead walked to the drawer with the medicine, and took out a bottle of sedatives and casually tossed it to the person in the entrance of the room.  
'Please sedate her' was all he said, the nurse behind him simply nodded and complied. Jack filled another syringe with a local anaesthetic and without so much as a wince plunged into his arm not far from where the cut was. 'You're hurt!' the nurse stood right next to him, he looked at her at a loss for words. A burning sensation had been spreading where the scalpel had done its work on him. Adrenaline started to course through his stomach, he wanted to sit down. Instead he walked out towards the E.R.

The curtain moved aside, Cuddy and Foreman stood where once curtain had been. Cameron had just started stitching up the gash in the skin of Jacks chest. They both looked up, Cameron looked almost disturbed, Jack as detached from the world as ever.  
'What happened!?' Cuddy exclaimed. Jack looked at the top of his underarm 'I got cut.' Was all he offered. 'More importantly, where are you keeping her? She was fine until she wasn't something is up and..'  
'Are you mad? How can you be so calm about this?!' Cuddy broke in, Jacks strangely absent gaze made her halt her tirade; she had learned with House to immediately know when someone stopped listening.  
'Jack was lucky the scalpel hit the outside of his arm, if it had hit the inside chances are a major artery could have been severed.' Cameron tried to easy the mood in the E.R. room. Foreman only quietly looked at Jack who was inspecting the stitches on his arm.  
'You think that woman has something to diagnose?' He asked Jack. Jack looked up; his round brown eyes actually looked like they had come down to earth for once.  
'I think it would be unwise to send home a woman who for no apparent reason might pick up a knife and stab someone.' Cuddy sighed, and turned around. Her employee was alright, she should not get invested the way she had with House, Jack was not dying or anything, and not suing anyone either. So her task here was done; she couldn't help looking over her shoulder to the newest member of Houses team though. She pushed down her worry that someone could be that indifferent to their own injury.

'Patient presented with a cyst, but also told me she'd been vomiting before coming here, and then of course hallucination' Jack finished his sentence before he got to the whiteboard. Foreman frowned at him wondering if Jack would've been so callous with House.  
'Are you okay?' Thirteen looked at the bandage around Jacks arm, covering the stitches. News ran fast in a hospital. Jack didn't acknowledge her question instead taking the marker and jotting down the symptoms he had just mentioned. Foreman leaned against the doorframe trying to look like he had authorised this takeover of the whiteboard. Jack was oblivious to it all. He looked at his writing '…Probably take down that one.' he mumbled and wiped out "cyst". He swivelled and then walked straight out the room again leaving Houses three fellows speechless. Foreman stuck his head out the door, 'Where are you going?'  
'I'm gonna go get a toxscreen. You know blood and pee and stuff' Jack already cut the corner.

Jack stopped in his tracks; he didn't take a literal look at his arm, but for a moment his mind was very aware of sensation returning to his limb. Of course immediately after he'd got cut, Jack had felt pain, but the first thing he had done was to inject himself with a local anaesthetic. So now that a sensation deep in his flesh somewhere between a nagging and a burning pain took hold of him, he stopped walking for a moment. He slowly blinked and looked intently at nothing in particular. When he forced his legs back in action Jack, almost to his own amusement, noticed how he kept his left arm close and still to his body. For no reason in particular Jack thought of those incisions one makes into a fishes body to rub marinade into.  
By the time he had collected some urine and blood samples and arrived at the laboratory, he wanted to rip his arm of. He hadn't gotten anything for pain, he realised. Probably because he couldn't have cared less at that time; but now he regretted skipping over the "what will happen when the anaesthetic wears off" part. He started testing the samples while trying not to engage his painful arm

Taub arrived at the conference room to see test results lying on the table. Foreman and Thirteen stood over them looking rather amazed. 'You should see the caffeine levels this woman has in her system.' Thirteen said looking almost exited.  
'An overdose on caffeine' Foreman shook his head slowly. Taub searched the room for Jack. But he was nowhere to be seen. Foreman saw Taub and answered his unasked question 'Jack disappeared after dropping this off. He didn't seem content with the results.' Foreman shrugged, who knew what Jack was thinking. At least House always made perfectly clear what he was thinking. He frowned as he realised he had just compared Jack to House _again_, as though the one replaced the other. _I am the boss for crying out loud, Jack should be wondering what_ I_ am thinking! _

Jack sat on his couch looking at the telly, usually his being would completely disintegrate while he got absorbed into the show, but he couldn't do it tonight. He couldn't turn off his thoughts and let go. _That woman did not have a caffeine overdose. Well of course she did have, her caffeine levels were so high it was no wonder she vomited everything else she'd consumed. But hallucinate, really? Had the caffeine really made her charge him like a bull, slicing him up like a sashimi? No that's not it. _It felt wrong. He turned off the television and walked to his kitchen. He knew there was no way he'd fall asleep with his mind churning like a merciless machine. He pulled out a small bottle, and shook out three sleeping pills which he swallowed. It was the kind you had to have connections for to get your hands on. The heavy duty stuff that whisked you away whether you liked it or not, and didn't allow you to leave until it was out your system. He would be late tomorrow, so what? People were late, especially if you had a traumatic event the day before. It would be fine.

'He's not waking up.' Taub pressed his fingers quickly into Jacks throat, checking if he has a pulse. Foreman had sent Taub and Thirteen to Jacks house when he hadn't turned up by ten, Jack was punctual, he had been forty-five minutes late on his first day, but that had in the end been the only day Jack had been tardy. Foreman hadn't liked the way Jack had disappeared after all that had happened and when Jack hadn't shown and also didn't pick up his phone, he had decided to take House-esque measurements. It was almost as easy to break into Jacks flat as it was breaking into Houses. And they had found him unmoving on his bed. But now Thirteen stood in the doorway of Jacks bedroom holding a small pill bottle containing Temazepam. Taub looked at it and then eyed Thirteen with that familiar feeling of inflation that belonged to accidently caring about a person like House.  
Taub found himself having to wait for Jack to wake up. He and Thirteen thought it unwise to leave him alone; one had to take a hell of a lot more than one Temazepam pill to not wake up after someone has shaken the life out of you. Thirteen left to inform Foreman. They somehow didn't feel that is was an OD of some sort. There was no booze or other pills involved and Jack had put on a proper pyjama and gone to bed.

Jack could feel how his eyes went from being asleep to looking at the insides of his eyelids. He didn't open them quite yet, enjoying how his mind rose out of the fog created by the sleeping pills. As he lay on his back, he slowly started to feel the presence of someone else in the room, as if to confirm his feelings he heard the rustle of a page being turned.  
He sat up, startling the other on a chair just across the room. It was Taub.  
'What are you doing here' although he was surprised, it hardly showed in Jacks body language.  
'What were you doing taking enough pills to be unable to be woken up?!' Taub's voice actually rose a little. Jack looked mystified.  
'To sleep without waking up.' He rose out of bed and stumbled, still a little groggy. His movement had been too sudden. Jack never seemed to feel bound by a conversation. He was able to just leave halfway through someone's sentence. He pulled out a bowl and the most sugary and childish cereal one could possibly find and poured milk over it after drinking straight from the package.

Taub had once overheard Wilson criticize House's breakfast choices; he looked at the bowl in front of Jack and pressed his lips together willing himself to not think about it.  
Before Taub had time to realize what happened jack had pulled his pyjama shirt off over his head and chest completely bare walked across the room to get a t-shirt of the floor. Jack although not technically male, did not have breasts, just an admittedly well-toned male chest. Jack apparently could feel his shock because he turned around, t-shirt just past his head, and said 'You're a plastic surgeon, figure it out.' It could've been a snappy statement, but like always when Jack said it no such emotions seemed to come into play. It was just a neutral statement. He went back to the bedroom and a moment later came out having tucked the black t-shirt into an olive green pair of chino pants. He had grabbed a tattersall dress-shirt which he put on as he made his way to the door.  
'You coming?' Taub quickly paced after him.

As the two of them arrived Foreman announced that they had a new case. Foreman wasn't about to start lecturing Jack on responsible medication usage, some people he had learned working for House, just naturally were impossible to expect a normal accountability from.

Jack sat in the clinic, he had just send out a patient with a very nasty rash and now sat slumped down in one of those swivel chairs whose seating had been put way to low. His head hurt. He had taken two paracetamol and was waiting for them to kick in. Jack looked at the ceiling and very quickly found a pattern in the small pricks in the ceiling tiles. There was always a pattern, if it was mass-produced, there would be a pattern. And Jack always found it.  
The door opened, it had only been 15 minutes since he had set his last patient out. Jack had hoped it would take longer before someone checked on him. 'Yea, you can send in the next one' he resigned.  
When Jacks clinic hours were done for he headed back to the diagnostics department, there was the new case after all and he was supposed to be a part of the team. Jack sighed; he wasn't cut out for working with others. He had a certain thinking process and _it_ generally didn't mix well with others.

Foreman looked up to see an empty seat, Jack was already in the doorway. They had only just started discussing the new case.  
'Wai-' He started but knew it was too no avail. Plus Jack disappeared on them all the time. And so he stopped, All Jacks good work came after he left the room, and he was useful; so everyone just kinda let it slide.

Jack let himself sink to the floor next to the toilet. He had quickly paced the private room with a guy in a coma. He figured it would be easier to stay unnoticed then in the official toilets. He had hurled his innards out, it was quite violent, but he had anticipated it would be and had pinched his nose to at least keep it from going out through there as well.  
Jack didn't feel all that sick to be honest, but he clamped himself up for a second round anyway. As he finished and spat in the bowl he suddenly realised what was going on. He looked up at the ceiling as he remained squatted behind the toilet bowl. He smiled; he had known it wasn't just a caffeine overdose. Whatever she had, it had gotten onto the scalpel he'd used on her cyst, and she had slashed him with it. Of course Jack had wiped of the blade, but just because the worst puss was gone didn't mean it was clean. Whatever she had he now had, and whatever it was, it started out with a headache and vomiting.  
Jack got up and rinsed his mouth at the basin, apologised to the horrified family that apparently had chosen just then to visit, but Jack made sure they didn't get his name and he vanished on them, the way he so often did on people.

In the clinic he entered one of the treatment rooms interrupting another doctor on duty, but he was quietly and quickly did his thin, drawing blood from his own (uninjured) arm and pulled his face into a broad quick smile as he left, leaving the other doctor no choice but to shrug and continue.  
As Jack ran the blood he removed the bandage from his arm taking a look at the stiches, it looked okay, and it didn't hurt as much as the day before. He moved his finger to touch it but stopped himself; that would just be silly. He took another closer look, and thought it might be safe to assume that what he had, had not affected the open wound through which it had entered. So it must have nestled down somewhere else. Jack didn't expect to find anything in the blood; they had not found anything in the woman's either. A few hours later it came up negative.  
He sat around suddenly feeling rather listless, he wasn't sure what to do next; wait for another symptom to turn up or go and inform the other members of the diagnostics team. To Jack telling wasn't as simple as is sounded. His being sick from the woman patient was just a suspicion on his part. Apart from him feeling that this was what was happening to him, he could just as well just have an upset stomach and a headache from the sleeping drugs he took too many off.

Someone took his hand. It startled Jack; he had been alone in the lab and had not noticed anyone entering. In reflex he pulled his hand back while looking, but there was no one there. He blinked and then immediately shrugged it off. But undeniably shaken he left the lab.

'Has anyone by the name Carlton come in today?' Jack wondered if his caffeine addicted ex-patient might have returned. After all what he had she would also still have. She had not returned though. He suddenly wondered if she had perhaps gone to a different hospital, after all: who would go back to a place they'd attacked a doctor with a scalpel. He probably wouldn't. He turned to go to Cuddy's office to have her call when he froze halfway through his step. It was absolutely ludicrous but down the hall, unmistakably he saw a chicken walking around. Just as he stared a nurse walked right past it, only just avoiding trampling it. The chicken didn't like that much and took off creating quite the chaos. He stared as the chicken landed only a few feet in front of him, still no one else seemed to notice it. Jack and the chicken stared at each other in seemingly equal confusion.

'I need a spinal tap' Jack announced this upon entering the room; he always started talking before completely having entered and it had bound to fail miserably at some point. For instance, there was no one there. Jack looked around impatiently, the chicken hopped clumsily onto the table. Jack felt kind of down, not that he wanted a hallucination; but he had always expected it to be more… well, not a chicken following him around. Why a chicken anyw-  
The room unfocussed itself, the chicken was gone. Jack quickly sat down; he shut his eyes for a moment hoping to regain his wits. When he opened them Thirteen stood in front of him looking at him in wonder.  
'You okay?' she asked.  
'Good you're here, I need a spinal tap' Jack repeated his request. The chicken was back, but he realised it was a different one.

Thirteen watched Jack suddenly focussing on the floor a bit in front to the side of the chair he was sitting in. He raised his eyebrows as if enlightened on something. Something was off, Jack never sat in a chair with shut eyes. And wait a second, Jack didn't normally ask to be on the receiving end of a spinal tap either.  
'You alright?' she now asked, the question has upgraded from okay to alright. She was a bit worried now.  
'Caffeine patient. Dirty scalpel. She must have underlying condition' Jack spoke in short clipped sentences; he focussed on the floor again slightly recoiling. He looked at her, his rational mind clearly understanding he was the only one to see and react to the chicken.  
'I'm hallucinating' it wasn't a statement many people could rationally make, especially not so calmly. 'A chicken just shit on the carpet' he pinched his fingers together 'This close to my sneakers'  
Thirteen took him by his arm; Jack was clearly letting go of his reason now that he had conveyed all the important things concerning his condition. 'There is no way we're gonna get out with this many blocking the way' he whispered to her as if he didn't want "them" to overhear.  
'Come on.' She pulled him walking rather sheepishly along contemplating how unusual the daily tasks for anyone on Houses team were. Thinking of "team" she had better inform Foreman.

'Cryptoccal meningitis!?' Taub and Foreman sounded flabbergasted. 'C gattii. It's rare but can happen' Thirteen tried not to sound triumphant but wasn't completely successful. After all, not only there caffeine patient had it, but Jack also. Jack however did not seem to be very bothered by it, rather just like when he had sat being stitched up after getting attacked; he didn't seem overly concerned with his own bodily health.  
'We need to find our patient so she can get treatment as well' Foreman stated while turning to leave. They had sent her away after they had seen the caffeine levels,_ what rotten luck did you have to have to have two conditions with largely the same symptoms? He stopped, would House have sent her home? Would he have been satisfied with the overdose theory? Jack hadn't been happy about it, but unlike House he wasn't the boss, and on top of that he didn't seem like he could deal with something as earthly as conflict. Jack had voiced his displeasure and then capitulated going home and downing sleeping pills. Did he think he wasn't going to fall asleep otherwise, because he'd keep thinking about it?_ Foreman pulled himself out of his thoughts and back to the hallway, he was on his way to Cuddy to report on the situation. Jack was in for at least two weeks of antifungal treatment and spinal taps.

'Well the chickens have gone.' Jack looked a bit like someone at a reunion reminiscing. 'I kinda miss them to be honest, you know, now they're gone'  
'you know what they say, if you love a chicken you have to let it go, if the chicken loves you it will come back' Wilson couldn't help being a sucker for needy people. Only Jack was far from needy, he lay flat in the hospital bed, a laptop balancing on his chest binging "Grey's Anatomy". But Wilson firmly believed that the more someone seemed like they weren't needy, the needier they secretly were. Call it a side effect of being Houses best friend. House wasn't here now and Wilson was bored. When he heard Jack had walked around the hospital hallucination chickens everywhere, he felt he had found his "while house isn't here" calling.  
Watching Jack watch Grey's Anatomy was quite the experience, as it turned out he had zero sense when it came to interpersonal relationships, Jack might as well have been watching Alien. But even though he didn't understand the main point of the show he binged it anyway. Apparently it took his mind off his mind.

Jack looked at the screen of his laptop he had now moved down to his stomach. He had been on Houses team for three weeks now, but had never met the big boss. He wondered what House was like.


End file.
